


when we're out of touch

by segmentcalled



Series: bright day will turn to night [3]
Category: Polygon/McElroy Vlogs & Podcasts RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, As you do, Epistolary, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Long-Distance Relationship, Longing, Pining, Prequel, Worldbuilding, Yearning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-23
Updated: 2020-01-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 08:42:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22367683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/segmentcalled/pseuds/segmentcalled
Summary: It’s easier than you might think to find a place like this, if you know where to look. Or if Chris Plante emails you, telling you he likes your podcast, and one thing leads to another and before you know it you’re packing up to move to Maine. It’s not a coincidence that he’s here. Not a coincidence that anyone is. There are places like this everywhere, all over the world, little havens for those who can’t or won’t or just plain don’t feel like blending in all the time.
Relationships: Griffin McElroy/Rachel McElroy
Series: bright day will turn to night [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1404742
Comments: 7
Kudos: 26





	when we're out of touch

**Author's Note:**

> i come to you with a worldbuilding-heavy installment of crow, well after everyone who's read the series has probably formed their own opinions on the matter. WHOOPS  
in my defense, i did start it right after i finished crow. but y'know. life. DSKFJGH  
thanks to justtheplanets for betaing!!!! youre the best
> 
> as always, formatting for text messages from [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6434845/chapters/14729722)

Griffin has been doing this podcast with his brothers for the better part of a decade now, according to his calculations. They’ve built up enough of an audience that Griffin could probably stockpile Yahoo Answers for the rest of his life just from his unread emails, but every once in a while he’ll find himself going down the rabbit hole anyway. For old times’ sake. Or something.

He’s crawling through the depths of the relationship advice section, scrolling through it absentmindedly and wincing at the particularly bad ones, when Jenna passes by the table he’s occupying.

“Sorry, Griffin, I’m gonna have to kick you out in a minute. You can come over, though, if you need wifi?”

“Nah, I don’t wanna get in your way. I’ll probably just go hang out at Chelsea’s. Thanks, though, I appreciate it,” he says, closing his laptop and putting it in his backpack.

Jenna is entirely too tolerant of him and his brothers, for someone who has to see them almost daily. The three of them are nearly constantly at the library, often found goofing off in the computer lab, or recording a podcast in the conference room that they have booked so regularly that they may as well put up a sign with their names on it. She only tells them to shut up if it’s busy, which it never is, because that’s the whole point of living here.

It’s easier than you might think to find a place like this, if you know where to look. Or if Chris Plante emails you, telling you he likes your podcast, and one thing leads to another and before you know it you’re packing up to move to Maine. It’s not a coincidence that he’s here. Not a coincidence that anyone is. There are places like this everywhere, all over the world, little havens for those who can’t or won’t or just plain don’t feel like blending in all the time.

Not a bad sitch, all things considered, but it is a little inconvenient to have to trudge all the way to town for any sort of reliable technology. They get by at home — such that it is — with things that’ll hold a charge, but it’s not exactly like there’s outlets inside a cave. And they definitely can’t record a podcast with the fucking ocean in the background. Talk about bad audio.

Griffin shrugs his backpack onto his shoulder and waves to Jenna as he walks out of the library and starts down the street. To be honest, it’s kind of a stretch to call this anything more than a glorified main street with some houses scattered nearby, but it’s what they’ve got. Everything’s open at weird hours, because nearly everyone keeps strange schedules, and there isn’t a lot of rhyme or reason to any of it. There’s the library, attached to the municipal building; there’s Chelsea’s bar; there’s the grocery store; there’s the flower shop that’s been sitting closed for like two months by now; there’s… not a whole lot other than that.

The woods are to the south — and the east and the north and the west — and for Griffin, mostly serves as an annoying obstacle between here and the beach, even with the shitty little winding trails through it. Griffin doesn’t fuck with the trees much. Or anyone who lives in the trees. Well, no, actually, that’s not quite accurate. He’s got plenty of friends who live in the trees.

Fuck it, what he’s trying to say is there’s some wild shit way deep in the heart of the woods and he does _not_ fuckin’ go there. Doesn’t spend much time anywhere even close, if he can help it. It feels weird to him to be so fully surrounded by plants, anyway. It’s an alien kind of magic; so different from the ever-flowing sea. In there, the ground thrums under his feet with centuries upon centuries of literally deep-rooted magic, steady and constant and so, so still.

Here, at least, there’s a big enough clearing for Griffin to feel like he can breathe. Open enough to see the sky, not that it’s much to look at right now. It’s been threatening rain all week, but it hasn’t happened yet, even if he can smell it coming. Taste it on the air.

He shoulders open the door to Chelsea’s with a sigh, and walks inside.

It’s nearly empty in the place, because it’s a Tuesday night, and the only time there’s ever more than a few people afoot is when Simone enforces a Friday trivia night upon them all. He does, admittedly, appreciate the sense of community, even if it’s a little silly. It’s kind of nice to have an excuse to see the people he doesn’t see as often. Even Russ and Chris manage to peel themselves from their trees sometimes. And memorably, Griffin brought Rachel once, when she visited from her Great Lakes habitat.

It would be nice to have her back again. They email constantly. They’re perfectly aware of their feelings for each other. It’s just, right now, they’re a little too far to make it work in a more official capacity. A freshwater mermaid couldn’t make it in the sea any more than Griffin could make it away from it.

Maybe someday they’ll figure it out. For now, he’s happy enough with what they have. And — they’ve talked about it, over the phone, late at night in hushed whispers like they were trading gossip — they know they’re basically a thing, but if they want to kiss other people, that’s alright. They know what they mean to each other. Nothing’s gonna change that.

Griffin pulls himself back to the material plane from his daydreaming as he says hi to Chelsea. She is, as always, pleased to see him, and he leans on the counter to chat with her after he orders.

She’s far too talented a chef to be running a bar in a little nowhere-town, but, well. Fae have a bit of a reputation when it comes to food. They trust her here, because it’s Chelsea and she’s their friend, for fuck’s sake, but she’ll be the first to say that if you can’t directly trace the source of what a fairy is giving you, don’t fucking eat it, holy shit. So Ashley usually does the shopping for the bar, for that extra peace of mind, and then everyone can fuckin’ chill out and Chelsea can do her thing.

Her thing, as it happens, heavily features reinventing the place at her whim. There was a solid month last year where she tried to flip the script and go the cafe direction, but it didn’t stick. The late hours are half the point of the place, considering the werewolves and all, but she did keep the bagel sandwiches on the menu afterwards, so in Griffin’s eyes it counts as a success in the long run. Currently, it’s kind of a hipstery little place, with — ha — fairy lights strung across the ceiling and tall wooden tables and sleek chairs.

There’s an upstairs, too, with a couple rooms — not enough that it could really be called an inn, especially since it’s not really advertised, but it’s really convenient when, for example, you need to hang out somewhere for the night because you don’t want to drag your ass back to sea. They’re not officially rented out or anything, and no one technically has a claim staked on any one of them, but each disparate room has some accoutrements from its most likely occupants.

Look, there’s a lot of _walking_ to be done to get home around here. It’s much nicer to stay here, and Chelsea is endlessly patient. She puts up with a lot. Especially when the McElroy cave floods and they decide to camp out here for a while and dry out.

Maybe they should take a leaf out of the dryads’ book and build a shed.

“— and we really do need to get someone into that cabin in the woods. I’m worried it’s gonna start falling apart if it’s empty for any longer,” Chelsea is saying, talking to Griffin with her back to him as she works.

“Yeah. I was thinking about that a couple days ago. If it was closer to the water, it might be nice to adopt it for those of us who live out there, but I don’t think that’s really in the cards.”

“I’ve been meaning to take a look online,” Chelsea says as she passes him his drink. “I’m sure there’s someone with magic who could use someplace like this, quiet but with a nice little community? If someone needs it and doesn’t know it’s here, I want to reach out.”

“That’s a good plan. I’m doing some research for the show, maybe I’ll find someone on Yahoo Answers,” Griffin says, half-joking.

Chelsea laughs, shaking her head fondly as she hands him his food. “Well, let me know if you do. I’ll see if I can’t pull some strings.”

“You got it, boss,” Griffin says, grinning at her, and heads off to a table in the far corner. The only other person in the place is Jonah, who is doing something on his computer with headphones on. Jonah’s kind of shy, Griffin thinks, and Griffin’s quite anxious, so they haven’t exactly bonded, but he seems like an alright dude. Whenever he’s out of the water, he’s usually attached at the hip to Brian and Laura, and, well, as long as they like him, Griffin trusts their judgment.

Griffin opens his laptop, and the screen comes on to show the page he’d left off on. In fumbling his laptop into his backpack, he’d clicked on one of the entries. It’s a typographical disaster. It looks like the author typed it while crying or drunk or drunk-crying.

> **I’m gay and have to move?**  
I just realize d I”m gay and my bestffirends won’t talk to me and I’m losing my apartment and my job (that aprts not beacuse Im’ gay thats not realted my roommate is a **** adn I can;t afford to live here without a rommate and my whole live is falling appart i just don’t knwo waht too do?  
_2 answers - Singles & Dating - 1 day ago_

  
Well, shit. That’s depressing.

He clicks on the person’s profile, vaguely curious, at least enough to snoop and have something to look at as he eats. 0% best answers, account created yesterday, username _crowboy_, which could either be a handle made of a compound word or a typo of cowboy. It makes Griffin… pretty goddamn sad, to say the least, when he sees shit like this. He’s lucky; most magical communities don’t give a shit and/or fuck about anyone’s sexuality or gender. Like, there’s dragons out there. Who fucking _cares_ about social norms when you can turn into a seal and most of your friends are trees or part-time canines.

Griffin has no way to know whether or not this person has magic in any way, but he texts the link to the question to Chelsea anyway. She’s got weird magic that Griffin can’t even begin to figure out, but she found Jenna through similarly online means, not to mention that she pointed Plante in Griffin’s direction. It doesn’t seem out of the realm of possibility, then, that she might be able to do something for them? Mess with their ad algorithm to nudge them towards a safer place or something? He’s not exactly sure what she does, and isn’t about to question it or its ethics. It’s not like there’s not massive companies out there doing heinous shit on the daily, and she likes to help in her way, so there’s gotta be some way she can help this poor sap.

He closes the tab and puts the question out of his mind, in favor of finding something funny to read tomorrow when he and his brothers are recording.

* * *

Rachel ♥  
  
Someone’s finally moving into the tragic little cabin in the woods  
  
Good!! I was afraid you and your brothers were gonna break in and steal it  
  
Yeah I’m just gonna go steal a whole house brb  
  
Ok no but like he’s cute  
  
Are you spying??  
  
No!!!  
  
Ok maybe a little  
  
What’s his name? Have you talked to him?  
  
....no  
  
OMG  
  
You should go introduce yourself and stop snooping on him and being weird!! I’m sure he could use some help getting the place back in shape  
  
That’s hard tho :(  
  
You’re such a bad neighbor  
  
Have you heard any other scuttlebutt about him?  
  
Oh my god I love you  
  
I haven’t heard anything else though no. I’m sure chelsea knows more abt him, she knows everything that goes on. I think he’s just a witch?? That’s the vibe I’m getting from over here anyway  
  
Well don’t be like that! “Just” a witch is so judgy. I’m sure if Chelsea had anything to do with it, he’s probably pretty alright  
  
Are you going to say hi?  
  
I already left oops  
  
I’m going to chelsea’s for the night if you want to skype maybe? Or just call I miss your voice  
  
You’re sweet ♥ I’d love to! Around 9 if that works for you?  
  
Sounds perfect ♥  
  


He doesn’t want to spend the next three-ish hours loitering at Chelsea’s, because he’s already in her hair enough anyway, so he takes a detour instead. He takes the long way through the forest, towards the dryad grove to see if anyone’s around. He hasn’t seen Russ in _ages;_ he’s always cooped up in his goddamn tree. Maybe he can persuade him or Chris to come hang out.

Instead, though, he runs into Laura and Brian, who are climbing a tree — Brian’s, maybe? Griffin has no idea — and laughing and shouting at each other. When Brian sees Griffin, he swings down from the branch he’s on and lands effortlessly on his feet to wave at him. Laura stays in the tree, but waves too.

The two of them are similar-looking to the point where it’s almost eerie, from the arch of their eyebrows to their wide dark eyes. Brian’s taller, and Laura’s small but fuckin’ _buff;_ Griffin sees her biceps flex as she hauls herself up to the next branch.

“Whatcha up to, Griffin?” Brian says.

“Trying to see if Russ or Chris is around,” Griffin admits.

“Well, first of all, they’re closer to town,” Laura says. “You’re in the Gilbert zone.”

“Right,” Griffin says, casting his eyes around with a sheepish sort of wince. He’s not super familiar with the layout of the forest, nor which trees have people in them.

“I was thinking of dropping by Jenna’s later, I can come with?” Brian says, so Griffin shrugs and says _sure_ and Brian lopes over. He’s pretty in an uncanny sort of way; he seems to become more attractive the longer you look at him. Not that this is, uh, not that this is something Griffin’s devoted a lot of time to considering! It’s just a little hard to ignore, when he comes at Griffin with that big ol’ smile.

“Do you see them often?” Griffin says, as they set off.

Brian shrugs. “Not really. I mean, like, I go by there every once in a while, ‘cause I go by just about everywhere every once in a while, but we don’t hang out or anything. Not like you guys do, anyway. Don’t — I mean, try not to take it personally, Griffin. A lot of dryads find it more comfortable to be a tree for most of the time. Especially when we get older.”

“I don’t think they’re much older than me, though?”

Brian ponders this. “Well, it’s also pretty easy to lose track of time as a tree. I’m super annoying about it ‘cause I like to operate on, like, a human schedule so I don’t miss shit. But not everyone’s out there tracking the sunrises; they all sort of blend together after awhile. They honestly might not even notice. Go left here, it’s past these bushes.”

Griffin follows Brian as he pushes through some foliage. When they break through it, they’re in a small clearing, similar to the one Brian lives in. Trees grow in near-perfect concentric circles; the farther away the trees are, the larger they get. Griffin couldn’t even begin to tell where the dryads stop and the forest begins.

“How come they’re hanging out over here together while your whole family is in one spot?” Griffin says. “That doesn’t make a ton of sense to me.”

Brian hums thoughtfully. “I guess it’s sort of, like, uh. Like, there’s basically two ways that dryad, um, seeds get spread, right? Oh my god, don’t make that face, I’m _not_ giving you the birds-and-bees speech, no matter how relevant pollination might be —”

“_What_ —”

“Gosh, Griffin, don’t make me be crude,” Brian says, and then laughs at the face Griffin makes. “I’m teasing. Nah, it’s just a real pain in the ass to make a baby dryad, so many dang steps, pollination and insemination and —”

“Gross, holy shit, I do _not_ want to know!”

“You asked!”

“You didn’t have to say _insemination!”_

“Well, now you’ve said it too! An-y-_way_, some families consciously plant their saplings — mine does, obviously, but it doesn’t have to be in the same place like that. And some just let the wind take them, so to speak.” Brian shrugs. “A lot of times the literal-and-metaphorical wind takes them places like here.”

“What do they do without their families?” Griffin asks, astonished.

“Oh, there’s always family. That’s an easy one. You got roots, you got a direct line to any tree in the forest. You get family whether you like it or not. Also, it takes a hot minute to even so much as be, like, sentient. I left my tree for the first time twenty-three years ago. That’s my birthday, I guess. Before that, I wasn’t much more than any old tree.”

“Were you a fucking _infant_ just crawling around? Falling out of your trunk? What the fuck?”

“No, no, nothing like that. We, uh. We age a little differently, I think. I was a kid, yeah, but not a baby. I don’t know how it works. No one has ever explained it to me.”

“Fuckin’ wild. Does someone take care of you?” Griffin says. “Or, I mean them, I guess? People who don’t grow by their families.”

“Sure, unless they landed somewhere real shitty,” Brian says. “Like I said, though, you learn from the earth.” He stops in front of a tree and politely raps his knuckles against the bark as he keeps talking to Griffin. “How’d you end up here, anyway?”

“Chelsea, of course,” Griffin says. “We’re from West Virginia, but, uh, after my mom…” He trails off, clears his throat. Brian nods, sympathetic. “Y’know. Things changed. We all needed somewhere we didn’t have to hide and pretend to be human all the time. I ended up connecting with her via Chris Plante, and,” he shrugs, “so now we’re here.”

“I’m glad you came,” Brian says, surprisingly earnest, “though it sucks that it wasn’t under better circumstances.”

Griffin sighs. “Yeah. I don’t really wanna —”

“Sorry, ‘course. I gotcha. Russ, _helloooo_, are you paying any attention?” Brian says, politely kicking the base of the tree.

The air goes hazy, shimmery, and then Russ is standing in front of them, gawky and nerdy as always. He rubs the back of his head and smiles sheepishly, peers at them through his glasses. “Hey, guys. Sorry about the wait. Is it trivia night?”

“No, and you’ve missed the last _six_,” Griffin says. Russ winces.

“Sorry, Griffin, I didn’t realize. Is something going on?”

“Does something always have to be going on for me to want to see you?” Griffin says, maybe a hair closer to whining than he’d like to admit. “I’m waiting to call Rachel and I wanted to hang out with you guys, and then I ran into this one and he offered to help me track you down. So. That’s the scoop.”

“Oh.” Russ ruminates on this for a moment. “Let me fish Plante out and then we can head to Chelsea’s?”

Griffin and Brian exchange a glance. “Fine by me,” Griffin says, and Russ shimmers out of sight again. There is a minute, two minutes, of awkward silence, and then Russ and Chris Plante are both standing in front of them.

“The gang’s all here!” Griffin says. “Well. Except Juice ‘n Trav, but bet you ten bucks we run into them anyway. C’mon, let’s_ gooooo_.”

* * *

It’s already dusk when they make their way into town as a quartet. The sign above the entrance to the bar is currently vivid fuchsia, _Chelsea’s_ in cursive writing, glowing the exact same color as her hair. She gets all the cool magic shit. It’s not even fair.

(It’s probably fair. Griffin’s not entirely sure how long she’s been around, but at a guess he thinks it’d be measured in centuries as opposed to decades. So she certainly has _way_ more magic practice than he does. But still. He would also like some cool tricks.)

Justin and Travis are, in fact, present; they’re sitting with Jenna, but immediately welcome Chris and Russ into their conversation, eagerly catching them up on what they’ve missed since they were last afoot. Brian looks a little uncomfortable, and Griffin’s stuck sitting too far to chat with the others, so Griffin takes pity on him.

“You don’t know them very well?” Griffin says.

Brian tilts a hand side to side. “Not especially. They’re sorta, like, the generation before me. Closer to Patrick than to me or Laura. All the dryads around here know each other at least a little, but I can’t say I’ve spent a ton of time talking to either of them.” Nor Griffin, but that goes without saying between the two of them.

“Fair enough. I’m sure you don’t need us old folks to entertain you,” Griffin says, grinning at him to tease, and Brian rolls his eyes.

“Please. I’ve probably been around longer than you in some sense. I mean, not _me_, but also not _not_ me? Look, tree shit is weird. It’s all relative, besides. Eventually I’ll be a tree full-time and be around for friggin’ centuries. Not that I have to worry about _that_ for a long time.”

“What are you _talking_ about over here?” Simone says, sitting down at Griffin’s right. “Stop talking about mortality while you’re in polite company!”

“Yeah, okay,” Brian says. “I’ll keep that in mind for when I find some.”

She sticks her tongue out at him. Brian wrinkles his nose in reply.

Correlation doesn’t necessarily equal causation, but the night gets _much_ rowdier after Simone appears. Definitely more than Griffin had anticipated. He slips away at his earliest opportunity to head upstairs, find a vacant room and flop down on the bed to set up his laptop. He texts Rachel to let her know that he’s around whenever she’s ready. Not a minute passes before the familiar _bloop-bleep-bloop_ of an incoming Skype call comes from his speakers.

“Griffin!” Rachel says happily, as soon as he’s visible.

“Hey, baby,” he says, unable to keep the smile off his face. “How’s it going?”

She tucks her hair behind her ear, wiggling around to get more comfortable. A flash of silvery tail catches the light behind her as she changes position. She’s lying on a big flat rock, her chin in her hands, beaming. “Good! What’s going on over there?”

“More than usual, actually?” Griffin says. “Syd’s leaving for a work trip soon, and Justin’s already being a massive fucking grouch about it.”

“Oh, gosh,” Rachel says, wincing sympathetically. “Hopefully he’ll settle down soon.”

“He better,” Griffin grumbles. “But I did get Plante and Russ to hang out, so that’s cool. Brian helped me find them and be like, get the fuck out of your trees you assholes.”

“Brian’s another dryad, right? The one who has a sister, what’s her name...?”

“Laura, yeah.”

“Right! Okay, yes, I’m with you now.”

Griffin smiles; Rachel smiles back. “He’s alright. I don’t know why we don’t talk more, I like him just fine. I guess he’s just sort of off the beaten path a little bit.”

Rachel rolls her eyes, fondly. “I’m sure he’d appreciate the tree jokes, too. How are Chris and Russ?”

“They’re okay. Brian says he thinks they lose track of time and that I shouldn’t worry that it’s personal if they go AWOL for a while. It’s just kinda shitty when your best friends fuckin’ disappear.”

“Of course it is. I’m sure they’d listen if you told them, though. Maybe there’s a way you could figure out to see them more regularly?”

“Start a fuckin’ podcast with ‘em, that’d get ‘em on a schedule for sure,” Griffin grumbles, and Rachel laughs. “Or at least get Justin on their asses too.”

“You guys accumulate podcasts like no one I’ve ever heard of!”

“It’s my specialty,” Griffin says. “Unlike, apparently, talking to people. Which is my segue! Into telling you about the new guy.”

“Oh, yeah! Did you learn his name?”

“No,” Griffin says, and Rachel sighs. “I will soon, okay! It’s fine. But he is _deffo_ a witch. Which sucks, because I’m pretty sure the thing is that most witches don’t know about, y’know, our whole shit? So we’re either gonna have to be subtle or blow up our whole spot. I just don’t get why Chelsea would bring him in.”

“Maybe he does know. Or maybe he really needed help. Hey, it’ll be okay. There’s lots of space out there. Even if you do have to be a little subtle, you won’t be hiding the way you used to.”

“Yeah, ‘cause subtlety is such a specialty of mine.”

“You underestimate yourself! I’m sure you’ll be fine. Maybe, while you’re making friends, you can befriend him, too.”

“Oh my god. You’re so keen on me talking to this guy. Is it because I said he’s cute?”

“Not really. I mean, a little —”

“Ha! Called it.”

“— but also because I think anyone would feel left out in a community like yours or mine without someone to let them in. It would be terrible to make him feel like there’s some clique he doesn’t get to be a part of, especially when for all he knows it’s just because he’s new.”

“_Ugh_,” Griffin groans, rolling over onto his back and putting his hands on his face. “Why do you have to make so much _sense_ all the time?”

Rachel laughs. “Just don’t make him feel too left out, okay? You were so sweet for me when I visited. And goodness knows I’ve been in the same position as he must be.” She pauses. “Sorry, I don’t mean to fuss.”

“No, I know, you’re good, baby,” Griffin says. “It’s not bad for me to get, like, a knock upside the head every once in a while.”

She snickers. “I know. And I really do hope he’s nice and that everyone gets along.”

“Fuck, me _too_.” He sighs, and rubs his face. “Anyway. That’s enough of my bullshit. What have you been up to?”

They talk late into the night, until neither of them can hold their eyes open any longer.

“Good night, Griffin. I love you,” Rachel says.

“Night, Rachel. I love you too,” Griffin says. He blows her a kiss before he hangs up, so that the last frame he sees is of her smile.

He closes his laptop and sets it aside, then flops down against the pillows with a sigh. After these calls, he swears he’d wrap his arms around his laptop and snuggle it if it would bring him closer to her.

He’s sure they’ll figure it out someday. They love each other too much to not find a solution. Griffin would change the salinity of the fucking ocean for her, if he could.

He buries his face against a pillow and wishes for something, anything at all, to lessen the dull and constant ache of loneliness inside him.

**Author's Note:**

> this is the last installment i currently have in progress for this series! that doesn't mean it's the last one that'll ever get written necessarily, lol, but for the time being, this is what we've got! thanks to everyone who has stuck around and been supportive along the way!!!! love you all!!!! ♥


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